Reports of the death of Chuck Biscuits, former drummer for such bands as D.O.A. and Danzig, were a hoax, reports CBC.

News outlets were reporting the drummer, 44, who hails from British Columbia, had died Thursday of throat cancer. But Biscuits, whose real name is Charles Montgomery, is healthy and living in Seattle.

The story began with American blogger James Greene Jr., who wrote about e-mails he’d been receiving over the past few months detailing Biscuits’s failing health.

“If this is all a big fat lie, I’m sorry,” Greene wrote Friday. “But I promise I was duped just as hard as you.”

“I’m amazed at how fast this went viral,” said Biscuits’s brother, Bob Montgomery. “I can’t tell you what this did to mom.”

He said he spoke to his brother Friday, but the drummer, who left the music business in 1999, is not willing to speak publicly about the incident.

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